BSBWOR404 Develop work priorities

Contents

Before you begin

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Topic 1: Plan and complete your work schedule

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1A Prepare workgroup plans

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1B Analyse workgroup objectives and priorities

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1C Identify and plan for risks

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1D Use business technology to manage tasks

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Summary

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Learning checkpoint 1: Plan and complete your work schedule

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Topic 2: Monitor your work performance

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2A Identify and analyse personal performance standards

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2B Seek feedback from colleagues and clients

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2C Identify and report variations in service and product quality

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Summary

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Learning checkpoint 2: Monitor your work performance

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Topic 3: Coordinate professional development

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3A Assess your knowledge and skills against organisational benchmarks

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3B Research opportunities for improvement and learning

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3C Use feedback to identify improvement opportunities

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3D Facilitate continuous learning

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3E Record professional development achievements

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Summary

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Learning checkpoint 3: Coordinate professional development

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BSBWOR404 Develop work priorities

1A Prepare workgroup plans

In your role as a manager, team leader or supervisor, you will be responsible for planning your own work schedule as well as that of your team to ensure that the team's goals and objectives are met. Depending on the size of the organisation you are working in, you may be involved in planning at an organisational level. In this case you will be directly involved in linking your team's responsibilities to the overall goals and objectives of the organisation.

Even if you are not involved in high-level planning in your organisation, as the team leader you will be responsible for devising a workgroup plan, including setting goals, objectives and targets for the team. You must also incorporate the team objectives into your personal work plan and each team member's work plan.

To be able to do this you need a thorough understanding of how all the plans fit together and how the progress of one of these plans affects the progress of the others. You also need to understand how planning and setting priorities helps you and the team achieve your objectives.

Be aware of the organisation's policies and practices for preparing work plans, developing budgets, seeking and managing resources, keeping records, and customer service. Know where you can access information and procedures to follow.

Definition of terms

Workplaces use different terms for describing how people work together and what they have to achieve. Below are some commonly used terms and what they mean.

Work group

A work group is any number of people who work together in a team. This can be a group of people who always work together or a team that is formed to achieve a specific task over a specific period of time. A work group or team is usually defined as people working together to achieve a common goal.

Work schedule

A work schedule can be referred to as a work plan, an operational plan or simply a plan. These words are used interchangeably in most workplaces in Australia. A work schedule or work plan details the tasks and responsibilities involved in achieving a specific objective. A work plan can cover one person's, a team's or a whole department's responsibilities.

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The planning process

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Establish realistic and measurable goals, objectives and targets.

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Make them quantifiable and specify a time frame for their achievement.

3

Identify the resources and budget required to achieve your objectives and targets.

4

List all the things that need to happen in order to achieve your goal.

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Determine the order in which events should occur. Be aware of team and individual targets and dates.

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Implement your plan.

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Check progress against the plan to make sure that your original targets and time frames are being adhered to.

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BSBWOR404 Develop work priorities

Types of team plans

Organisations use a range of team plans to achieve their team and individual employee goals. Here is an outline of three strategic team plans.

Workgroup or team plans

Depending on the size of your organisation, you may be responsible for a work group or team within a department. In this case, you will devise a team plan that details the daily, weekly or monthly actions the team is responsible for achieving on behalf of the department and the resources you will need to carry out your work plan.

Team manager plans

Your own plan should detail your overall goal, objectives and targets and how you expect to achieve them. This includes your major areas of focus, the allocation of specific tasks to team members, your weekly activities and daily tasks, and the resources you need to successfully complete your plan.

Team reflection

Whereas the organisation's strategic plan should focus, motivate and inspire its employees, your own work plan should help you focus and keep you motivated towards your own work goals and targets. Your goals and tasks provide direction and act as guidelines to help you complete your day-to-day tasks, make appropriate decisions and solve problems.

Individual team member plans

Team members' individual work plans must reflect their weekly and daily tasks and detail how they are expected to achieve the set tasks. You need to set time lines, allocate resources and discuss outcomes for each of the tasks. This should be done at a team meeting when tasks are allocated and deadlines are set.

Link the plans together

Every plan in an organisation must link with all the others. If individual work plans are not designed to contribute to achieving the team manager's plan, then the team manager's plan will not be implemented effectively and the objectives will not be achieved. If the team manager's plan is not achieved, the workgroup plan will not be achieved and so on, right up to the organisation not achieving its strategic plan. If an organisation does not achieve its strategic plan it will have failed to meet its obligations to its board of directors, shareholders and clients. Therefore, it is very important that team and individual work plans reflect the objectives and goals of the organisation.

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... continued

Know the business cycle of your organisation

Your knowledge of your market and clients includes understanding market trends or purchasing patterns and planning for them. There could be certain times of the year when customers are more likely to purchase your product. For example, ski gear is a seasonal purchase. Other purchases could be cyclical; for example, mostly made at the end of the financial year. In that case, you may need to put aside other work during this period while you focus on meeting the increased production, purchasing or sales demands placed on your team.

Access any information held within your organisation that records the services requested of your team over the past 12 months. This will help you predict client needs for the next 12 months. You can also use purchasing data to determine purchasing patterns, which will help you schedule cyclical tasks and anticipate client demand.

Business offerings

Your clients may make an unusual or new request for a product or service. Your knowledge of your organisation's range of products or services will help you meet the client request. By working with the client to understand exactly what they require, you may find that your organisation can develop a product or service to suit the client, or that an existing product or service that the client is unaware of would suit their needs. Sometimes your clients' needs will not be best met by your organisation and you will need to refer them to someone who is better placed to service them. By understanding your clients' needs and knowing your products and services, you will be able to make these judgment calls and provide a better service to your clients. As a team leader, it is your responsibility to ensure that your team also understands the parameters within which to make these judgment calls. Set guidelines for team members to follow and, when requests fall outside of the guidelines, make sure they know to discuss the solution to the client's need with you.

Know your market

Your understanding of the market that you operate in will help you when you are devising the work plan for the team. For example, if you have a good relationship with your clients, they may tell you when your competitors approach them for business. With this knowledge, you will be able to plan your strategy for keeping the client and you will also be able to report the competitor's activity to your manager and other colleagues who could be affected.

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Workgroup targets

As you write your workgroup plan, keep in mind your organisation's overall goal (its mission or vision), its objectives and targets. Be clear about the big picture before you set your own objectives. It makes sense for individual work objectives to be linked to team objectives, and for team objectives to be geared towards delivering business goals. Your understanding of your team's goals must be clear enough for you to know what you should do to help achieve them. Consider your unique role and the responsibilities that correspond with the role to help ensure that your team reaches its goals. You must have a clear understanding of the role of your work group in the organisation. Whether a plan is intended to shape the future directions of the organisation, or shape your own daily activities in the short or long term, it needs a clear statement of purpose, objectives that can be measured and tasks that can be prioritised.

Definitions

You need to be clear about the subtle differences between goals, objectives and targets. Here is an explanation of each.

Mission or vision

At the broadest level, the mission or vision of an organisation is a strategic goal set by the senior management of the organisation and encapsulates what the organisation wants to achieve.

Objectives

Objectives provide clear measuring posts as an organisation proceeds towards these strategic goals. Objectives are more short-term and more specific than goals.

Targets

Targets are usually more short-term than objectives and even more specific. They tend to cover five main areas: cost, quality, quantity, time and safety. Targets must be measurable; that is, you must be able to express them with a quantity, dollar, time or number measure.

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Topic 1 Plan and complete your work schedule

Practice task 2

Read the case study, and then answer the questions that follow.

Case study

Kirk is the team leader of five legal secretaries. The team looks after the administrative work of three partners in a law firm. The firm's partners pass work to Kirk who then distributes the work among the five secretaries. Usually, all work from a particular client will be given to the same secretary. Kirk's draft work plan for his team includes the following objectives: ?? Provide accurate and timely administrative support to partners. ?? Maintain currency of all hard-copy and electronic active files. ?? Ensure all closed files are archived accurately. ?? Provide professional service to all clients. Kirk is holding a meeting with the partners to determine the priorities of his team's objectives. He discusses with the partners the range of administration tasks the team has been undertaking in recent months, including preparing draft contracts and keeping up with the correspondence between the firm and its clients involved in the deals. Kirk knows that the key objective of the partners is to maintain a high level of billing so that their revenue targets are met and salary levels can be maintained. In order to maintain a high level of billing, the administration team needs to make sure that all documents for clients are accurate and ready as needed. Kirk is concerned that with the number of deals the partners are expecting to sign, his team will be flat out providing administrative support and customer service to clients. Kirk is worried that the files will not be accurately maintained. He raises his concerns with the partners and is confirmed that it is more important that the administration work is completed and that clients are kept informed about the progress of the work.

1. Describe how Kirk uses his knowledge of the firm's strategic goals to help him work with the partners to determine which objectives should be prioritised.

2. What questions do you think Kirk asked himself to determine which of his team's objectives were more important than the others?

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Here are several questions that might be posed when devising contingencies within a work plan.

Questions to ask when devising contingencies ?? What will happen to the work plan if this risk occurs? ?? Which tasks will be affected by the risk? ?? How can we realistically stop this risk from occurring? ?? What can we do to get the work plan back on track once the risk occurs? ?? Is there more than one solution available to us? ?? Are all solutions workable? ?? Which is the best solution? ?? What tasks are involved in executing the solution? ?? Who will be responsible for carrying out the tasks? ?? How will we know that we have overcome the risk?

Develop detailed risk management plan

Just as your original work plan has tasks and responsibilities detailed, your contingency plan also needs to contain these details. If you have identified risks that could seriously affect your team's ability to achieve its objectives, you may want to consider developing a very detailed risk-management plan for these particular dangers. A number of common risks are outlined below.

Competing work demands

Competing work responsibilities can generally be resolved in a number of ways: ?? Re-allocate the tasks to a team member who has the requisite skills and is

available. ?? Determine the priority of the competing responsibilities (possibly with the

assistance of your manager). If your work plan takes precedence over other teams', you can refocus the team member's effort onto completing the team's objective. ?? Increase the size of your team by hiring additional people temporarily or seconding someone from another team. ?? Change the order of the tasks. ?? Remove the tasks and change the scope of the work plan.

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